AmateurRadio.com

Series Six Episode Four of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, mailbag  and Martin (M1MRB & W9ICQ) dicusses completing your amateur / ham radio project.

• SA ham elected to First Class Operators Club
• Echolink Node on a Raspberry
• STRaND-1 amateur radio smartphone CubeSat to launch 25 February
• Pirates brought to task
• Renewal of Irish Amateur Radio Licences
• Southern Peninsula Amateur Radio Club at the Rosebud KiteFest
• Mountain Goat award for Welsh radio amateur
• Lottery grant to preserve wartime Ashdown Forest radio transmitter
• Statement about Radio Amateurs' Advanced Examination in Northern Ireland
• 100 Years of Leicester Radio Society (G3LRS)
• Ham radio operators to install radio at Community Church

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

It’s day four of my hopefully last Windows-to-Linux migration, and so far so good.  I have my HRD log imported into CQRLog and it’s talking to both my Arduino Keyer and Yaesu FT-897.  The Keyer is happily sending CW and CQLog is reading the rig frequency.  The rig control function is very simple and utilitarian compared to HRD’s, but it works.  What I cannot get working is controlling the Kenwood TS-850.  This appears to be a problem with Hamlib, which CQRLog uses via rigctld.

I found that Linux re-enumerates USB /dev/ devices if you unplug one.  For example, I had my Arduino Keyer at /dev/ttyUSB0, my TS-850 interface at /dev/ttyUSB1, and my FT-897 interface at /dev/ttyUSB2.  Upon unplugging the Arduino Keyer and TS-850 interface, the FT-897 became /dev/ttyUSB0, and with nary a mention in syslog.  I find this behavior strange.  But I’m really pleased Linux handles USB device insertions and ejections so well.  Back in the day to do stuff like this you’d have to edit some text file, recompile your kernel, and walk uphill in snow both ways.

To run N1MM I installed Virtualbox and within that installed a very bare bones Windows XP installation.  This enables me to run Windows XP as a virtual machine within Linux, without rebooting.  N1MM installed and ran without a hitch in the virtual machine. I was reminded N1MM likes to install in C: root, like it’s 1994 on Windows 3.1.  But I digress.  Attaching host USB devices to virtual machines in Virtualbox is a piece of cake and I had N1MM talking with the 850.  So I’ve got my contesting needs covered.

It occurred to me that it wouldn’t take much to get CQRlog to do basic contest logging.  It already has cw interface keying and function key definitions and macros.  All it really needs is serial number generation with corresponding function key macros, previous QSO report lookup, and perhaps a little more field customization.  This would cover the basics.  One can handle scoring outside the program, but a band map with the DX cluster integrated would be the next feature on the list.  I may just look at the source code and see if I can make sense of it and maybe play around with some customizations.  I sense another project I’m going to get sucked into.

So far I haven’t had to go back to my native Windows installation for anything, other than to steal more disk partition space.  Maybe I cheated a little by installing an instance of Windows XP on Virtualbox, but hey, whatever gets the job done!

(Update: I just found the CQRLog band map window and it is integrated with the DX cluster!)

Anthony, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com.

Back in December when my second Elecraft K2 kit arrived I tossed around the idea of starting an additional blog about my K2 build. I planned to not only document my kit build but to keep the site updated with links and sites that will help out fellow builders. I have up to this point produced 3 pages and some updating posts on the blog itself. Check out the blog and give me  your feedback as well as any info you would like to see on the site as well.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Fifteen metres was again in good shape today. The contacts I made included the prettiest ham I’ve yet worked, and the station with the longest call I’ve ever logged.

Natali, RV3ADL

Call me a male chauvinist if you like, but whenever I work a YL (young lady) on the bands I can’t resist looking to see if I can find a picture of her. I worked Natali from Moscow on PSK31 this afternoon and she must be the prettiest ham radio operator I’ve worked in my long career. She keeps a pretty neat shack, too.

The prize for the longest callsign ever logged goes to YO2013EYOWF which is the official call of the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival 2013 in Brasov, Romania. I pity anyone having to send that in CW! I don’t have any pictures of the YO2013EYOWF operators but they do have a very pretty logo which I expect will be on their QSL.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

In the last couple of weeks I have received two eQSLs for contacts that never happened. The QSLs were from made-up callsigns that are clearly SWLs, e.g. UA-123456. But the message with the card says simply: TNX For QSO TU 73! Curiously, both QSLs contained exactly the same wording.

Now I have nothing against SWLs. I started in this hobby as a broadcast SWL and I feel that all hams should have had experience as an SWL to get familiar with procedures, propagation and so on. But I am uncomfortable with receiving eQSLs from listeners as the eQSL system has no way to distinguish a listener report from an actual contact so their presence messes up my totals.

In practice it isn’t a big mess-up as I have never received an SWL card from a country I haven’t had a proper QSO with. So I do accept eQSLs that make it clear they are for reception of a contact I made. But TNX FOR QSO? Who do they think they are kidding, and what do they hope to gain from it?

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I spent the evening conversing with Ed, KN9V on 40 Meters. Ed sent me an e-mail a few weeks back, asking him if I would meet him on the air for some real live CW practice. We tried earlier this week, but the propagation gods were against us. Tonight we had a much better go.

Ed feels that he’s a little rusty, but it was evident that he’s really doing fine. We were about 559 both ways, and we were able to enjoy a QSO for just about an hour. A little QSB and QRM made it interesting, but it was a very nice QSO.

I hope to meet Ed on the air again soon.

If you feel your Morse Code needs a little work and that you need a CW buddy, then send me an e-mail at [email protected].

Time permitting, I’d love to make a sked with you and work with you on the air. Now that the KPA3 amp is installed in my K3, I can turn on the afterburners so that you wouldn’t have to strain to hear me. Although, if you’re so inclined as to want to attempt a 2X QRP QSO, you wouldn’t get any arguments from me!  I am comfortable sending anywhere between 5 to about 23 WPM, and I can go on any band from 160 to 6 Meters.

I am available most weeknights, and would be glad to hear from you.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

What’s the point of PSK125? I just finished a session running PSK31 on 15m (which was really lively, by the way) when I thought I’d just check 10m to see if anything was going on up there. I soon found that there wasn’t much. The waterfall was devoid of traces, apart from a weak, wide, nebulous trace which proved to be PSK125.  PY2DN was calling CQ, but try as I might he couldn’t decode me.

It appeared that he was making some QSOs, presumably with people enjoying better 10m propagation than I had. PY2DN’s signal was far from perfect copy. Most times he transmitted I received mostly garbage. But I’m sure there was enough energy in the transmission to produce solid copy had he been using PSK31.

I guess the point of PSK125 is speed. PY2DN’s CQ and my reply both lasted about two seconds. But what’s the hurry? Not only can I not type that fast, I can’t even click macro buttons that fast. So the time saved is for nothing. I accept there is a role for PSK63 in contests, when speed matters, but only when signals are strong enough to provide good copy. PSK125 is a step too far. It spreads the energy too thinly.

I’ve tried loads of new digital modes but I keep on coming back to good old PSK31. I find it more satisfying in the long run. There’s tons of activity from heaps of different locations. You can often find a PSK31 signal when the CW and SSB band segments are dead. PSK31 is a real QSO mode where you can actually converse with somebody and exchange information with them. And you don’t need to run a kilowatt to a huge tribander to be successful. I was calling CQ on 15m with 40w to my attic dipole and I felt like a big gun: I was getting replies, including DX replies, to every other call.

I think PSK31 has earned its place alongside CW and SSB as one of the staple modes of amateur radio. Other modes are just for temporary amusement.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].